Arte-Art / Exhibitions / Latinidad

ART: “Our America” highlights the Latino influences in U.S. art

By hola | Published November 22, 2013 | No Comments

“Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art,” a major new survey of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, seeks both to remedy the longstanding neglect of Latino artists in the official story of American Art and highlight the impact they’ve had on the country’s wider art movement.

The exhibition features work by artists with roots in a variety of countries including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuban and the Dominican Republic. Beyond showcasing the diversity inside the U.S. Hispanic population, it encourages us to explore Latino art not as “a movement apart” but as an integral component of American art and culture.

American art is “a socio-politically progressive form of cultural expression,” part of an American culture that is constantly evolving, according to the exhibition’s curator, E. Carmen Ramos. As immigration trends changed the face of the American public over the years, American culture grows and accommodates new influences. So it stands to reason that as Latinos have become  the country’s largest minority group—so have Latino Americans’ contributions to American culture, she says.

Latinos are quintessentially American—if not by birth, then by citizenship, residency, education, or experience, Ramos says. While not all the artists were born in the United States, they all share a history of ongoing struggle for equality and a better life—ideals that unite all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Our America also captures the cultural and aesthetic diversity the artists’ in the exhibition. By presenting works of artists from different locations, using a variety of adopted and blended techniques, Ramos seeks to showcase the niche that Latino artists have created for themselves within American art’s various artistic forms and movements.

While European-American and African-American artists may receive more attention than their Latino counterparts, the exhibition presents Latino artists not as a marginalized people but as participants in a shared dialogue with other American artists about identity, culture, and pressing U.S. social issues.

The exhibition will be on display at the Gallery Place museum through March 2, 2014.

Photos: Top: "Night Magic (Blue Jester)" by Carlos Almaraz, © 1988;
Middle: Margarita Cabrera's "Brown Blender," © 2011;
Bottom: "Crystal City" by Franco Mondini-Ruiz, © 2009
Photos courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum

—by Tranelle Dodson

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